"We believe that memory must open a channel to human rights. Why human rights? Because we realize that when a people is threatened, it doesn't remain threatened alone. When a group is singled out, it threatens all other groups."



-Elie Wiesel, Romanian-born American writer, activist, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor

GOP Targets for Oppression

• Women
• People of Color
• Immigrants
• LGBTQ Americans
• Transgender Americans

Those who believed we were out of the woods after Donald Trump lost the election are incredibly wrong. Fully, 147 of the Senators and Congress people left behind by Trump voted to overturn a legitimate election. These are his people. That's 147 out of 221 in office, a huge percentage. It has also been quite clear that GOP leadership is not willing to push back against Trump.

Kevin McCarthy has not done so, and neither has he held his Trump-like members of the House and Senate accountable for their actions. The same goes for Mitch McConnell.

McConnell may well have suggested that someone else in Georgia challenge Herschel Walker, a man who is barely cognizant enough to talk on political positions, let alone be elected to the Senate as a very first-time candidate. Yet, when push came to shove, McConnell relented and endorsed Walker. 

Several non-Trumpian GOP members are also walking away from the party and are not seeking reelection. Adam Kinzinger, who is fairly young and could someday be the face of the party, is one of them. He has cited that there is a 'cancer' in the GOP, and he is quite right. A case in point is the fact that McCarthy will not hold Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert or Madison Cawthorne accountable for their actions, but he censured both Kinzinger and Liz Cheney for participating in the J6 Committee.

In just four years, Donald Trump made a mess of this nation. On his first day in office alone, Joe Biden overturned 17 of Trumps evil deeds via executive order. Many of these policies, as you can see in this article, make it clear who the GOP is targeting.

While Trump has not formally announced a run for the presidency again in 2024, he has been flexing his muscle on endorsements in the 2022 midterms. While his success rate to date has been a mixed bag, and there are those who claim his grip on the party is slipping, I won't be convinced until we get through the midterms. Here's another take on his endorsements from The Brookings Institute. He has plenty of acolytes in the Senate and House now, and he seeks more.

We are also left with a Supreme Court that has been stacked to ultra-conservative levels with the addition of Neil Gorsuch, Brett Cavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, with the full cooperation of both right-wing Christians and the Catholic Church. This was done with the intent of overturning Roe v. Wade. Donald Trump announced this himself in a 2016 speech. This alignment does not bode well for other rights which have been fought for on the same basis as Roe.

Beyond the Supreme Court, we are left to contend with a host of judges appointed by Trump on many levels who will be in their positions for years to come. You can be sure that these judges will push the country further to the right even if the people reject right-wing policies at the voting booth.

As the J6 insurrection investigation goes on, one of the key articles I read was about the long journey of Clarence and Ginny Thomas to turn America into a more conservative nation. We post that here, so you understand that this didn't 'just' happen overnight. In fact, the article refers to it as a crusade.

My memory goes back to the Nixon era in terms of pushing the nation to the right but, in fact, it goes back even further, although we will stay in the recent past for the purpose of this website. Now, let's fast forward to the era of Ronald Regan, then the Newt Gingrich experience of the early 90s and his Contract with America. The Tea Party movement attempted to take over the GOP. It has been a long crusade indeed, and the right wing has been in it for the long haul. As it has progressed, the right has become further radicalized.

The Tea Party may have been denied by the GOP, but it found an ally in Donald Trump and his politics of white man anger.  It was the Tea Party Patriots Foundation that funded some of the medical misinformation specialists during the COVID-19 pandemic.
 

What Donald Trump unleashed on America is the Tea Party on steroids. The GOP has spent untold taxpayer dollars passing legislation to oppress anyone who isn't white, straight and male. They have attacked the public education system and the public health system.

Trump has normalized hate and violence toward those considered "undesirables." Out of the ashes we have the 1776 Restoration Movement. We had violence in Charlottesville at the 'Unite the Right' rally. We had violence in Kenosha, where Kyle Rittenhouse killed two people and maimed another. Yet the GOP has held him up as a patriot and a hero.

We have had a concerted effort to overturn Roe v. Wade, we have a host of anti-trans bills that put transgender children in harm's way, backlash against hard-fought LGBTQ rights, and a smorgasbord of voter suppression legislation targeting minorities. 

All of these are discussed in this section.